Question

So I’m trying to make part of a code where it writes something, then overwrites it. Like this:

10 seconds have passed
11 seconds have passed
12 seconds have passed

without using a new line to print it. So I don’t want to use something like this:

std::cout<<"10 seconds have passed\n"
std::cout<<"11 seconds have passed\n"

How do I do this? I’m running Kubuntu Linux

Answer 1

That’s what the carriage return character is for: \r. It is named after the mechanism of typewriters that returns the paper carriage to the right so that the typist can continue typing from the beginning of a line. Try this:

std::cout << "10 seconds have passed";
std::cout << "\r11";

Of course, with no delay between the two (except perhaps waiting on I/O), you’re unlikely to see the change, but you will at least see the output as 11 seconds have passed with 10 nowhere to be seen.

How to display the carriage return is entirely up to whatever you’re outputting to, but this is its intention. For more complex cross-platform terminal output, take a look at ncurses.